


Holding On

by sanctuary_for_all



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, And one gay slur that Richie directs at himself, But that's just how they both talk, Eddie Kaspbrak Loves Richie Tozier, Eddie doesn't die, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Kiss, Fix-It, I know there's already so many of these, Love Confessions, M/M, Richie Tozier Loves Eddie Kaspbrak, so much swearing, sorry - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-25
Updated: 2019-09-25
Packaged: 2020-10-27 20:37:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20766614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanctuary_for_all/pseuds/sanctuary_for_all
Summary: Richie was pretty damn happy to never let go of Eddie's hand until nice-quiet-deaths-a-few-decades-down-the-line did them part, but there was no way in hell Eddie was going to agree to that plan. (Spoilers for "It: Chapter 2.")





	Holding On

**Author's Note:**

> So I finally watched "It: Chapter 2," and unsurprisingly returned home a wreck of a human being. Since this is clearly a theme with us poor souls who watched it, there were about 10,000 fix-it fics already on Ao3 waiting for me. Surely, I told the Richie who had shown up in my head, _surely_ there were enough fix-its already written. Surely I didn't need to write one of my own. 
> 
> Richie, unsurprisingly, did not give a shit. So I'm sorry to add to the stack like this, but it was either write it or let him keep screwing up my sleep. Warnings for SO much swearing and one gay slur Richie directs at himself because he's just like that.

So it turned out Bev was right about the the whole Deadlights-give-you-shitty-visions-of-the-future thing.

But, as their entire fucking lives had made perfectly fucking clear, just because something was shitty didn't mean it wasn't true. Because he was laying there in that cave, staring up at the relieved face of the man who his new memories suggested was the reason for at least a solid 75 percent of the empty spot inside him, and he thought he was still stuck in the Deadlights. Because there was that burst of happiness, but any second now that fucking claw-leg thing was gonna show up in the middle of Eds's chest and end the entire fucking world. No matter how much Richie wanted to, no matter how much screaming was going on inside his head, he wouldn't be able to do a single fucking thing about it. He'd lose him, again and again and again...

But he wasn't frozen now, and even though his brain hadn't figured that out his hand sure as fuck had. He'd wanted it to move so fucking badly, wanted it to reach out and pull Eddie out of the way, and all that want seemed to surge out at once and yanked Eddie sideways to (relative) safety.

Eddie held onto him the whole time, hard enough that they both sort of rolled and Richie landed on top of _him_.

That was enough to crash Richie fully into the moment, the _real_ one where the fucking claw-leg smashed hard into the spot where they'd just been laying a second ago. They both moved as it lifted again, pulling each other out of range as much or more as they were getting out of the way themselves, half-collapsing onto the rocks a little distance away.

He turned, wide-eyed, back to Eddie. A distant, freakishly calm voice at the back of his head pointed out that he just nearly died back there, _twice_, and that the only reason he hadn't was because Eddie had gone into fucking superhero mode. That seemed like a relatively minor issue to the rest of his brain, who was too busy trying not to have a fucking heart attack at the endlessly looping mental image of an impaled Eddie getting pulled away from him. It was bad enough he wanted to puke, but that would have meant letting go of Eddie and that was un-fucking-acceptable at the moment.

Eddie was staring back at him, looking just as terrified as Richie felt, and for a second Richie wondered if he'd processed just how close he'd come to dying. Then Eddie finally sucked in enough air to speak, fingers digging even tighter into Richie's arms. "Damn it, asshole!" he managed, every ounce of his attention on Richie. "Stop nearly dying, or you're going to give me a fucking heart attack!"

Eddie was a good guy, but his sense of what was important had always been fucked.

000

After that, they just didn't let go of each other.

Okay, so that was the kind of shit teenage girls said, and to top it all off wasn't even really true. Running for your life from a murderous clown spider, then smack-talking that same spider into a tiny little thing (complete with some leg ripping) were the sort of things that sometimes needed two fucking hands. But he was hyper aware of every second they let go, the sight of Eddie being lifted away rising up behind his eyes, and he grabbed back on as soon as he could. Their free hands were holding on to each other as they crushed the bastard's heart, and they used that same grip to drag and shove each other out of the collapsing tunnels.

They were still holding hands as they stood out on Niebolt, watching the house collapse into nothingness. Richie's internal alarms should have been going off like a motherfucker at that point, the same way they always did when he caught himself about to reveal his secret outside of some dirty club bathroom or back alleyway. But holding onto Eddie felt like a lifeline, as fucking essential as the breath in his lungs, and he honestly didn't even notice until they turned to go and he was pulling Eddie with him.

That was when he freaked out for a second, hand spasming, but even his oldest fear had nothing on the new terror he was sure would be the starring attraction in his nightmares for the rest of his fucking life. Pennywise had taken Eddie away again, this time forever, and even though it hadn't actually happened it had sure as shit happened to Richie. No matter what other shit the rest of his life threw at him, it would be small fucking potatoes in comparison.

(Hell, he should probably hug Bev. Maybe help pay for the extra Deadlights-fucked-me-over therapy they were both probably going to need for the rest of their lives.)

So his alarms had been flash-fried, which should have probably happened a hell of a long time ago, but the truth was that didn't fix shit. Yeah, _he_ was pretty damn happy to never let go of Eddie's hand until nice-quiet-deaths-a-few-decades-down-the-line did them part, but there was no way in hell Eddie was going to agree to that plan. He was _married_, for one fucking thing, and even though it was basically to his mom that probably still meant he was firmly in the does-not-enjoy-other-people's-dicks camp. He just saw Richie as a weird childhood friend he'd reconnected with in the most traumatic way possible, not as the piece he'd been missing his entire fucking life.

And when he finally realized he was still holding Richie's hand, he was abso-fucking-lutely going to let go. Maybe he'd flinch away, maybe he'd be gentle about it, but it was a done deal. And if he wasn't fucking ready for that, he'd have some sort of breakdown and screw up whatever crumbs of anything Eddie might be willing to give him. Right now, even a little Eddie felt like a hell of a better deal than no Eddie.

So he told himself to get ready. He told himself all the way down Neibolt, through the side streets and weird wooded areas that probably would have been paved over anyplace that hadn't spent the last century as a literal hellhole. He told himself that even as they climbed up to the edge of the quarry, right to the spot they used to jump off of in their underwear.

But it still hadn't happened, even as they watched everyone else jump off the edge. "I'm not fucking going in there," Eddie warned. "We've all got open cuts, there's a hole in my fucking face, and there are enough microbes in there to give the CDC shit to work with for _years_." He turned to Richie, clearly ready to fight. "You can go in there – I'm sure your condo's germ-infested enough you're probably immune – but I'm going to stay right the fuck here."

This was it. Eddie was going to let go, and Richie was going to have to pretend he wasn't having a panic attack. He tried letting go first – surely that would make things _less _weird – but his fingers were locked in place. Like it was survival instinct keeping them there.

Hell, he didn't know if he could let Eddie go even if he was stupid enough to _want_ to.

Eddie must have picked up on some of it, because the fight in his eyes shifted to that mode Richie always used to think of as Doctor Eddie. "You need to sit down." He turned to face him, laying his other hand on Richie's arm. "Panic attacks feel like shit, but they're worse if your knees buckle. It's easier if you—"

Faced with too much emotion suddenly crashing into him all at once, Richie spilled his guts just like he did when Mike first called him. This time, though, the only thing he had inside him was words. "I carved our initials into the kissing bridge. R + E, back when we were 13."

Eddie froze, pure shock flashing across his face before it crashed back to anger. "Bullshit."

"I'm fucking serious." Richie tightened his hold on Eddie. "It was when all of us were fighting and your mom wouldn't let you see the rest of us. I missed you so damn bad it was driving me crazy, and while I wasn't too thrilled with the idea of being a fag I couldn't argue with the fact that I was in love with you."

The anger slowly melted out of Eddie's expression, replaced by a raw look that made Richie's chest hurt. "Why..." Eddie's voice cracked, and he swallowed. "Why the fuck are you telling me this?"

Richie felt like he'd jabbed something into his own chest. It hurt like a motherfucker every time he took a breath, but it was still a thousand times better than watching Eddie be hurt. "I know you're married, dipshit. I'm not _expecting_ anything out of this, especially since I'm still fucking your mom. But I... I just..." Damn, he could really use a hit off of Richie's inhaler right now. Still, that probably wouldn't do shit about the way his eyes were stinging. "I wasn't brave enough to tell you last time, and I lost you to the shitty brain-Roofies Derry does to people. I know you're going to leave again, but I could have lost you in such a _fucking_ worse—" He broke off as his voice cracked, sucking in a ragged breath. "I've never felt about anybody the way I still feel about you. And I just— I'm pretty sure I'm going to fucking lose it when you finally let go of my hand, and I thought you of all people deserved to know why."

Startled, Eddie looked down at their joined hands as if he'd just now realized that they'd been holding hands the whole time. Then he looked up again, staring into Richie's eyes like he could see inside his head if he tried hard enough. Richie let him look, feeling more exposed than he ever had in his entire life. Eddie had always seen more of him than anyone else had.

Finally, after what felt like another couple of decades, Eddie let out a breath. "So," he said finally, calm in a way Richie's newly returned memories were pretty damn sure he'd never seen him be. "Where do you think you'll go after this? You mentioned you had some dates in Reno."

"Fuck the dates in Reno." That was Richie's instinctive asshole response system, the only part of his brain not scrambling to catch up with what felt like a hell of a sudden detour in the conversation. "I have no idea what the hell I'm doing after this. I've been a little distracted by the fucking demonic clown thing we just killed and the nervous breakdown I'm in the middle of right now."

Some of the old exasperation snuck back in to Eddie's expression, so fond it made Richie's chest hurt in a completely different way. "Well, you'd better figure it out, dipshit." He squeezed Richie's hand, voice going soft. And his eyes... if Richie tried to describe it, even in his head, he was going to straight up burst into tears. "Because I'm not planning on letting go of you anytime soon, which means one of us is going to have to change our return flight."

Even with everything he could see in Richie's face, the words still hit him like a speeding car out of nowhere. "What?" He clung even tighter to Eddie, feeling closer to fainting than he had in his entire fucking life. If he was misunderstanding this, it'd kill him even faster than Pennywise. "What?"

Eddie huffed out a laugh. "So articulate. No wonder you don't write your own material." Then he swallowed, worry leaking back in. "Also, I could really use a good divorce attorney recommendation if you have one. I know a lot of personal injury lawyers, but—"

Richie had no choice but to kiss him. It wasn't even slightly suave – the idiot kid he'd been was right there along with the relatively experienced 40-year-old, and there wasn't anything either of them had ever wanted half this much. But that didn't matter, because Eddie was kissing him _back_.

They fumbled together, lips and tongues and so much emotion Richie was amazed he didn't explode with it. Eddie let go of his hand only to pull him closer, dragging him down into the circle of his arms, and Richie clung like that stupid cardigan was the only thing keeping him from falling off the edge of the world. Cheers filtered up from the water below – the rest of the Losers, expressing both their approval and complete lack of surprise – and if this were a movie the sappiest song of all time would be playing in the background.

Hell, maybe teenage girls weren't all that wrong about this shit.

When they broke apart, Eddie had a blissed-out look on his face Richie knew not even Derry could make him forget. "You know what?" he managed breathily, hands still on the sides of Richie's face. "You kiss almost as good as your mom."

Richie grinned at that, tears in his eyes as he leaned his forehead against Eddie's. "Then I guess you're just going to have to help me practice until I get better, aren't you?"

Eddie grinned back. "I guess I am." He closed his eyes, clearly prepared to stay where he was for the foreseeable future. "There's still no way in hell I'm getting in that water, though."

Richie pulled him into a hug, happier than he'd thought he was capable of. "No problem. I'm sure whatever's down in that water is _way_ more gross and dangerous than whatever was in that graywater we all just swam through. Not to mention whatever shit was in the demon clown guts I'm sure we both have on us. _Definitely_ nothing to worry about in—"

Eddie cut him off with a firm jab to the side, but even the reminder at how utterly disgusting they both were wasn't enough to make him lift his head. "I get the picture, asshole."

He pressed his cheek against Eddie's completely gross hair. "Yeah, but I'm your asshole."

Eddie tightened his arms around him. "You definitely are."

When they did (eventually) jump in the water, they were holding hands the whole way down.

**Author's Note:**

> Come check out my [original fiction,](https://jennifferwardell.wixsite.com/mybooks) my [blog,](http://jennifferwardell.blogspot.com) or say hi to me on [Tumblr](http://sanctuaryforalluniverses.tumblr.com)!


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